Universal Pictures to Release Pitch Perfect One Week Earlier

Universal Pictures announced today that the studio will release the musical comedy Pitch Perfect one week early on Friday, September 28 in select theaters before the film will expand wide on October 5th. Here’s the announcement:

Universal Pictures announced today that it will release Pitch Perfect in select theaters across North America on Friday, September 28, 2012one week earlier than expected. This early release of the new movie from Gold Circle Films and Universal Pictures will precede the musical comedy’s wide release, which continues as previously scheduled on October 5.

The decision to open the film in select theaters early resulted from a number of factors, led by the wildly positive moviegoer feedback for Pitch Perfect from early screenings and indicators of a very engaged core audience avidly anticipating its release. Universal is promoting Pitch Perfect with the most extensive screening campaign in the studio’s history. Over the past few weeks, hundreds of screenings of Pitch Perfect across the country have consistently received raucous audience response.

Those screenings have also created regular spikes in social-media conversation that far outpace similar films at the same stage. Fizziology, the leading social-network monitoring company, notes that the sentiment for Pitch Perfect in social media conversation is more than 90 percent positive. Just last week, following the airing of a single television ad for the film in the mid-season finale of ABC Family’s Pretty Little Liars, three separate topics related to Pitch Perfect became trending topics on Twitter: the film itself, the character of “Fat Amy” and the song “No Diggity” that was featured in the spot.

Universal hopes to further galvanize the growing positive buzz for the film with this early release strategy, giving early audiences of core fans the opportunity to accelerate the velocity and expand the reach of the word-of-mouth for Pitch Perfect after they see it starting on September 28.

“You have to be willing to break the rules for a film that you deeply love, and supporting Pitch Perfect in this unorthodox way is a result of our passion for the movie and confidence in its reception,” said Nikki Rocco, President of Distribution, Universal Pictures. “After every screening, we’ve seen levels of reaction similar to how audiences responded to American Pie and Bring It On, other comedies for a young audience that grew into great success stories for Universal.”

“The social conversation surrounding Pitch Perfect on Twitter, Facebook and blogs has been loud and incredibly positive,” said Ben Carlson, President, Fizziology. “We have measured these types of metrics around every major movie in the last three years, and this film is one of the strongest comedies that we’ve seen this far ahead of release.”

To encourage fans to grab their friends and see Pitch Perfect, Universal has teamed with Fandango and MovieTickets.com on exclusive offers for the early screenings. Those who buy three or more tickets on Fandango to any showing of the musical comedy will receive one additional ticket to the same showing at no charge. As well, those who purchase tickets at MovieTickets.com will get $5.00 off their purchase of two or more tickets to the show. For more information about the promotions and a list of theaters showing Pitch Perfect, visit www.pitchperfectmovie.com/tickets.